this plane a red bird this plane a winterblack tree Here a red bird—

Miraculous Bird, he says again, as if it were his name, as if

I might have forgotten him, too, a year after the concussion.

I take the tender gift into my lap as I do

the pictures of my mother in her twenties.

The small hands of my eyes open and close at the shapes:

more familial than familiar, like me and not of me—

a beforeness, a red bird singing

at a frequency far out of range.

Shannon Sankey's poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming at the Academy of American Poets, Visible Poetry Project, Rogue Agent, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Weeklings, Atticus Review, Pretty Owl Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2017 Academy of American Poets University & College Prize. She holds an MFA from Chatham University, where she was the Whitford Fellow. She is the founder of Stranded Oak Press. See www.shannonsankey.com.